Geoff Calkins: Rebels pop up for one big win

Ole Miss quarterback Bo Wallace gets a celebratory lift from center Evan Swindall after a Wallace touchdown against Auburn on Saturday in Oxford, Miss. Wallace caught a touchdown pass, threw one and ran for a score.

OXFORD, Miss. — If the Ole Miss program can be defined by a moment, that moment was supplied by running back Jeff Scott.

He was tackled. You saw that, right?

Scott caught a quick pass from quarterback Bo Wallace. Then he was hauled down immediately by Auburn linebacker Ashton Richardson. So that was that. The play was dead.

Except there was Scott, running for the goal line. Fifty five yards, he ran. Instant replay revealed that Scott rolled over the stunned Richardson, but that he never actually touched the ground.

He was down, but he had popped back up.

Just like his football team.

The Ole Miss Rebels put an emphatic end to the longest stretch of misery in program history Saturday, pummeling Auburn, 41-20. Everyone can stop counting. The streak of consecutive SEC losses is finally over at 16.

"Words cannot really describe the feeling in that locker room and in the stadium," said head coach Hugh Freeze. "For the better part of 2½ years, the Rebel fans and kids and players and administration have had to put up with some disappointing times. We're not there yet, nor do we think we are. But today we were. We were good enough in four quarters to win an SEC football game."

Never mind that the SEC opponent was Auburn, a program in complete free fall. This day was what Freeze and Ole Miss needed. And it revealed some important things about what's going on in Oxford.

It wasn't an easy week for Ole Miss. Whatever could go wrong did. The team gave away a win against Texas A&M last Saturday. Wallace's sister, Baylee, broke her neck in a car wreck. Defensive backs coach Wesley McGriff went to the doctor Fri

day to see why he was feeling crummy and wound up with three stents in his heart.

Oh, and then Ole Miss squandered a lead in this one, too. The Rebels turned a 14-0 lead into a 17-14 deficit toward the end of the first half. After 16 straight SEC losses, it would have been easy for the players to start to think, "Here we go again."

So credit Freeze for building more than an offense. The guy gets a lot of credit for the fancy stuff. He drew up a halfback pass to Wallace, the quarterback, for the team's first touchdown. Plays like that make Freeze football fun.

But you don't win SEC football games with X's and O's alone. You win by imposing your will. You win by believing in your teammates and in the enterprise. You win by popping back up.

So Ole Miss took the second half kickoff and drove 73 yards for a touchdown. The Rebels never trailed again. The defense, which had given up 17 points and 153 yards in the first half, gave up three points and 60 yards the rest of the way.

Then came Scott's astounding catch-and-run.

"I call that Touchdown, Jesus," Freeze said.

But it wasn't really a miracle. It was effort, and smarts. As Scott was being hauled to the ground, he said, he remembered former Auburn running back Michael Dyer pulling off an immaculate somersault in the national championship game.

"I just tried to push up and keep running," he said.

Words to live by, right there.

From that point on, it was a party. A celebration and a sigh of relief. Linebacker Mike Marry got himself an interception. Wallace became the first player in Ole Miss history to run, pass for and catch a pass for a touchdown in the same game.

Nobody is saying that Ole Miss is suddenly an SEC power. Nobody is denying there's a lot of work yet to be done. But as the Rebels head into their bye week, they're riding an SEC winning streak of one.